Cincinnati Gentlemen maga­zine is changing its name and retooling its distribution strategy with a goal of broadening its reach and establishing a business model it can export to other cities.

The bimonthly magazine, with a paid circulation of about 3,000, will be known as Cincinnati Profile starting in June.

Its 15,000 hard copies will be supplemented by an electronic version that can be e-mailed or downloaded by cell phone. In addition, the magazine has struck a deal with Cincinnati Sports Leagues, which will distribute the electronic version to the 25,000 young professionals who participate in CSL’s softball, basketball, bowling and flag football leagues.

The retooling comes at a rough time for magazines, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Total revenue in that sector declined 20 percent to $4.2 billion in the first quarter of 2009, as advertisers froze marketing budgets when the economy ground to a halt late last year.

Automotive, finance and retail were segments that cut ad spending most severely.

“We want to create a magazine where we become Cincinnati’s profile page,” said Tom Schaefer, publisher of the four-year-old publication.

Schaefer wouldn’t comment on the magazine’s profitability, and said revenue has been flat.

Schaefer, son of former Fifth Third Bank CEO George Schaefer, conceived the publication as a Cincinnati version of Esquire or GQ in 2005. He sold it to Reach founder Bob Slattery in 2007 but stayed on as publisher and minority owner.

Schaefer said he’s been contemplating a name change for months because the original doesn’t reflect its readership, half of whom are women.

“The heart of the magazine was our profiles,” Schaefer said, “the stories we told on people. We thought, ‘Let’s take what we do well and expand it, make the whole magazine about people.’”

He’s hoping to boost readership over 50,000 with the new distribution strategy.

“It’s something we hope is scalable, to be able to take to other markets,” said Slattery, who thinks the magazine could be rolled out to Indianapolis or Columbus by 2010. “We want to make sure we have the model down right.”